Steam - Arcania & Gothic Pack for 75% Off

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I think TES and Gothics, at least 1 & 2, are a bit different. I'm willing to concede that most gamers probably like TES over Gothic but I'm not one of them. The lack of story and general feeling of wide open emptiness in TES has prevented me from ever getting far in Morrowind. Granted, I've only played the first two Gothics but I greatly enjoyed them and absolutely consider 2 a classic.
 
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I think TES and Gothics, at least 1 & 2, are a bit different. I'm willing to concede that most gamers probably like TES over Gothic but I'm not one of them. The lack of story and general feeling of wide open emptiness in TES has prevented me from ever getting far in Morrowind. Granted, I've only played the first two Gothics but I greatly enjoyed them and absolutely consider 2 a classic.

If you ever find yourself in a situation that you are in a mood for sandbox open world you should try a heavily modified version of morrowind like MGSO it should make for an amazing game although I still haven't gotten around to that particular one myself.

I remember using several atmosphere enhancing mods though and they made for a tremendous difference on the game. The TES modding community rocks :)
 
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I think TES and Gothics, at least 1 & 2, are a bit different. I'm willing to concede that most gamers probably like TES over Gothic but I'm not one of them. The lack of story and general feeling of wide open emptiness in TES has prevented me from ever getting far in Morrowind. Granted, I've only played the first two Gothics but I greatly enjoyed them and absolutely consider 2 a classic.

To me, Morrowind is the best RPG ever created since its is the first RPG I have ever played. So much good memories and the first time is very special and thats not just for games!

Since then I have played lot of other RPGs including the Gothic games. In my head I know that Gothic 2 is the best RPG ever created but in my heart Morrowind still hold that place for the above reason!

I have tried to reply Morrowind many times in the last few years with different mods and all that but I always give up after couple of hours these days... so if Morrowind was released today I would think its... (can't say the word!)
 
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I played all of them, Gothic 1 and 2, and Morrowind as well. Gothic first, since it came out first.
I replayed the Gothics a dozen times since.
I never replayed Morrowind, although I spend about 2 years playing it in a row, intensely in the beginning, sporadically towards the end.

What I figure today, that the magic of Morrowind for me was the setting, and the sandbox free roaming exploration. I have had that in Gothic 1 before, but not to this extent. But if those things hadn't grabbed me about Morrowind, I would never have played it to the extent I did. For me, thus, Beth design only hits the spot if their atmosphere and world is captivating. Neither Oblivion nor Skyrim did that for me.

But I still replay Gothic 1 through 3 these days. They are probably my favorite games of all time. So they are classics for me, and I know for lots of other people (almost every gamer I know). But they were niche games even back in their time, with a less known European developer. Does that mean they can't be classic? Can only more streamlined, more economically successful games be classics? I don't think so. Design makes a game a classic, not the number of players who played it, nor the market, and especially not the North American market. I know you don't like to hear it guys, but not everything about NA. :)

As for this bundle that is the original topic, I'll say it again, Gothic 2 Gold is the only thing from it that is worth it really. And I recommend buying it from GOG rather, along with Gothic 1 and vanilla Gothic 3. Those are the real gems.
 
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Now you are actually starting to talk sense. Posting your opinions on the matter lucidly and I respect that. :)

What did I say previously, that didn't make sense and wasn't lucid? I feel like what I've been saying about Gothic is pretty obvious. And also, very well known. Outside of its very loyal fan base. Somebody mentioned metacratic. Well, Steam tells me Gothic 1 has a metacritic score of 81, Gothic II (Gold edition) has a metacritic score of 79 and Gothic III has a metacritic score of 63. That's not "classic" territory. That's Two Worlds territory. Though I'm sure there are some who believe Two Worlds is also a classic. And yes, I'm aware you aren't the one making claims about "classic" status, nor are you the one who brought up metacritic scores, but how is it that you don't believe it is those people who aren't talking sense, or being lucid? And how do you suppose it is that somebody on this forum would think that an average series score in the low 70s was worthy of a brag? Could it be that the games they tend to like usually score even lower? Somebody wouldn't be very lucid if they weren't aware that these scores are considered mediocre in the industry, would they? And aren't I the one that suggested review scores can't be used to evaluate game quality? PC Gamer gave Jagged Alliance II, which *is* a classic, a score of 74 when it came out nearly 15 years ago. Hopefully, whoever issued that score was invited to begin a new career in the fast food industry shortly thereafter, but I kinda doubt it since great games made by small studios routinely get slagged by the industry pundits.

a) GUI: I have criticized it myself in principle. Doesn't matter to me at all I grew up playing classics that didn't have any to speak of. I find it ridiculously easy to adapt to. kids stuff :)

Yeah, it's not expected that a game that doesn't have a graphical user interface should have a graphical user interface. But Gothic does have a GUI. It's just the worst one, ever. That may be fine with you but doing a bad UI stopped being fine with me in the early 1990s when I saw what improvements Origin made to the GUI in their Ultima games. Ultima VII is another classic game, by the way.

b) The handling of loot and armor as a status symbol and faction choice perk is an enormous plus for me. Loved it. One of my favorite things on the series :)

Not me, I disliked it a lot and I think a lot of other people did too. It's not very RPG-like to not have control over your character's wardrobe.


c) Gothic is very sandbox. Sandbox means giving you enough material that work in a sufficiently abstract manner, that combining them in creative and intuitive ways produces a fun and interesting outcome, emergent gameplay and different ways to progress over quests and the game in general.

I disagree with you about what makes a sandbox game a sandbox game. Lots of non-sandbox games such as Baldur's Gate II match that description. I realize "sandbox" and "open world design" are kinda fuzzy concepts, but Gothic certainly doesn't qualify as either one, to me.
 
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Now you are actually starting to talk sense. Posting your opinions on the matter lucidly and I respect that. :)

What did I say previously, that didn't make sense and wasn't lucid? I feel like what I've been saying about Gothic is pretty obvious. And also, very well known. Outside of its very loyal fan base. Somebody mentioned metacratic. Well, Steam tells me Gothic 1 has a metacritic score of 81, Gothic II (Gold edition) has a metacritic score of 79 and Gothic III has a metacritic score of 63. That's not "classic" territory. That's Two Worlds territory. Though I'm sure there are some who believe Two Worlds is also a classic. And yes, I'm aware you aren't the one making claims about "classic" status, nor are you the one who brought up metacritic scores, but how is it that you don't believe it is those people who aren't talking sense, or being lucid? And how do you suppose it is that somebody on this forum would think that an average series score in the low 70s was worthy of a brag? Could it be that the games they tend to like usually score even lower? Somebody wouldn't be very lucid if they weren't aware that these scores are considered mediocre in the industry, would they? And aren't I the one that suggested review scores can't be used to evaluate game quality? PC Gamer gave Jagged Alliance II, which *is* a classic, a score of 74 when it came out nearly 15 years ago. Hopefully, whoever issued that score was invited to begin a new career in the fast food industry shortly thereafter, but I kinda doubt it since great games made by small studios routinely get slagged by the industry pundits.

a) GUI: I have criticized it myself in principle. Doesn't matter to me at all I grew up playing classics that didn't have any to speak of. I find it ridiculously easy to adapt to. kids stuff :)

Yeah, it's not expected that a game that doesn't have a graphical user interface should have a graphical user interface. But Gothic does have a GUI. It's just the worst one, ever. That may be fine with you but doing a bad UI stopped being fine with me in the early 1990s when I saw what improvements Origin made to the GUI in their Ultima games. Ultima VII is another classic game, by the way.

b) The handling of loot and armor as a status symbol and faction choice perk is an enormous plus for me. Loved it. One of my favorite things on the series :)

Not me, I disliked it a lot and I think a lot of other people did too. It's not very RPG-like to not have control over your character's wardrobe.


c) Gothic is very sandbox. Sandbox means giving you enough material that work in a sufficiently abstract manner, that combining them in creative and intuitive ways produces a fun and interesting outcome, emergent gameplay and different ways to progress over quests and the game in general.

I disagree with you about what makes a sandbox game a sandbox game. Lots of non-sandbox games such as Baldur's Gate II match that description. I realize "sandbox" and "open world design" are kinda fuzzy concepts, but Gothic certainly doesn't qualify as either one, to me.
 
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What did I say previously, that didn't make sense and wasn't lucid?

Lots of back and forth and confusion about what came first and what makes a classic game (obviously usenet comments ;) ) or not and aggressiveness and wishing for PB to close shop on the other thread. Sounds to me you are trolling a bit or have an axe to grind ,or both :)

When you actually started describing what you really don't like about the game in detail I started paying attention is all I was saying.

Its obvious we completely disagree about well, everything. You also don't seem to like RPGs after the 2000s or there about at all. Saints row ? Total war ? :S

Anyways you are welcome to (and I am not one to begrudge you) your opinions. I just can't take anything from them :-/
 
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I think TES and Gothics, at least 1 & 2, are a bit different. I'm willing to concede that most gamers probably like TES over Gothic but I'm not one of them.

I don't think there's much "probably" involved, but it's good of you to acknowledge it :)

The lack of story and general feeling of wide open emptiness in TES has prevented me from ever getting far in Morrowind. Granted, I've only played the first two Gothics but I greatly enjoyed them and absolutely consider 2 a classic.

I can live with lack of story. In fact, I'd rather the main story line take a back seat to the gameplay in most cases. Just about every RPG I've ever liked, such as Bloodlines, could have been vastly improved by giving the player more activities to engage in outside of chasing down the next storyline trigger. What I loathed most about early TES games was the overall lack of *any* meaningful content. Most of it was randomly generated and frequently reused. Made for an endlessly repeatable but intensely dull experience. People could spend years playing those games and never finish, but they'd be doing variations of the same exact thing, all that time. Reminded me of MMO design, only without other people in the game to liven things up. Oblivion was a big step up from that, and every game they've released since Oblivion was additionally improved. I went from being a hater to being a fan, and now TES inspired games are the only RPGs I can get exited about. Yeah, I'm jaded but the industry is at fault for turning so many previous fans into bitter cynics. It's OK, though. They have lots of console gamers and action game with RPG elements fans to replace us. Not sure where that leaves games like Gothic, but whatever.

Anyway, my biggest complaints with TES games now are the loot and NPC auto-leveling system, combined with the player leveling unstoppable freight train. If they got that stuff sorted out I'd be pretty well pleased. I also have an issue with their games being easy-mode design, but I realize that's not going to be addressed. Nobody will release a difficult and challenging game, these days.
 
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Lots of back and forth and confusion about what came first and what makes a classic game (obviously usenet comments ;) ) or not and aggressiveness and wishing for PB to close shop on the other thread. Sounds to me you are trolling a bit or have an axe to grind ,or both :)

I do have an axe to grind. I've had very bad experiences with online fans of this series. What's that got to do with making sense, or being lucid? And I didn't start that anal retentive release date issue. Nor did I say anything that was incorrect about it. And I pointed out it was irrelevant, right from the start, didn't I? The original claim was there was nothing else like it when it came out. There was. Morrowind. And it seems to me that many people in this thread are vouching for that fact. Including you. Did you not compare them? Did you not state you played both, at about the same time?


Its obvious we completely disagree about well, everything. You also don't seem to like RPGs after the 2000s or there about at all. Saints row ? Total war ? :S

Jagged Alliance is also a much better RPG than most the so-called RPGs that have been crapped out by the industry the last 10 years or so.
 
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Why don't you go find them and pick up from where you guys left over ;)
Bye now :)
I agree and you know what this thread is now closed.:spotlight-right::bow::spotlight-left:
 
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